Cabinet for selectively dispensing different types of paper towels

ABSTRACT

A paper towel dispensing cabinet of improved design is described for holding and dispensing rolled paper towels and single-fold, multi-fold and C-fold towels. The novel cabinet comprises a casing having a rear wall, a pair of side walls, a bottom member and a front wall, said bottom member including a substantially horizontal portion merging into an upwardly inclined portion towards the front of the casing, said inclined portion terminating in a substantially vertical rolled paper guide spaced rearwardly from the front wall, a folded towel dispensing slot in the inclined portion of the bottom, said slot being narrow adjacent the ends thereof and being enlarged rearwardly in the central region thereof to form a space for grasping C-fold towels and an adaptor plate hingedly mounted on the rear wall arranged to assume a first position flat against the rear wall to accommodate a towel roll or a wide width single-fold towel pack and a second position in which the plate is inclined downwardly with the lower edge thereof resting on the bottom adjacent the rearward edge of the dispensing slot to guide narrow width multifold and C-fold towel packs into engagement with the dispensing slot.

ite States Patent 1 Wyant 1 Jan. 30, 1973 i541 CABINET FOR SELECTIVELYDISPENSING DIFFERENT TYPES OF PAPER TOWELS Gerald Willis Wyant, 4343Mayfair Avenue, Montreal, Quebec, Canada [22] Filed: Nov. 30, 1970 [211App]. No.: 93,621

[76] Inventor:

[52] US. Cl ..221/44 [51] Int. Cl. ..A47k 10/34 [58] Field of Search..22l/48,62,52,53,6l,55,

Primary Examiner-Stanley l-I. Tollberg Attorney-Fetherstonhaugh & Co.

[57] ABSTRACT A paper towel dispensing cabinet of improved design isdescribed for holding and dispensing rolled paper towels andsingle-fold, multi-fold and C-fold towels. The novel cabinet comprises acasing having a rear wall, a pair of side walls, a bottom member and afront wall, said bottom member including a substantially horizontalportion merging into an upwardly inclined portion towards the front ofthe casing, said inclined portion terminating in a substantiallyvertical rolled paper guide spaced rearwardly from the front wall, afolded towel dispensing slot in the inclined portion of the bottom, saidslot being narrow adjacent the ends thereof and being enlargedrearwardly in the central region thereof to form a space for graspingC-fold towels and an adaptor plate hingedly mounted on the rear wallarranged to assume a first position flat against the rear wall toaccommodate a towel roll or a wide width single-fold towel pack and asecond position in which the plate is inclined downwardly with the loweredge thereof resting on the bottom adjacent the rearward edge of thedispensing slot to guide narrow width multi-fold and C-fold towel packsinto engagement with the dispensing slot.

1 Claim, 5 Drawing Figures PATENTEDJAHBO I975 3.713.561

SHEET 1 [IF 3 INVENTOR Gerald Willis WYANT PA TENT AGENTS PATENTEDJAI 30I973 SHEET 2 BF 3 INVENTOR Gerald Willis WYANT PATENT AGENTSPATENTEDJAIIBO ms 3,713,561

'snmsnfs INVENTOR Gerald Willis WYANT CABINET FOR SELECTIVELY DISPENSINGDIFFERENT TYPES OF PAPER TOWELS This invention relates to an improvedpaper towel dispensing cabinet for holding and dispensing rolled papertowels and single, multi-fold and C-fold towels.

Cabinets for dispensing paper towels have long been known and are widelyused. Many of these cabinets are designed to dispense only a single typeof towel so that certain cabinets will dispense only rolled paper towelswhile others will dispense only wide width single fold packs, stillothers will handle only the narrow multifold packs and still others willhandle only the narrow C- fold packs. With these single purpose cabinetsit will be evident that one must always have the proper type of towelfor each type of cabinet and the result is that if that particular typeof towel pack is out of stock, the cabinet becomes useless even thoughother types of towel packs may readily be available. Attempts have beenmade to overcome this difficulty by designing a multi-purpose cabinetwhich is adaptable to handling all of the usual different types of towelpacks on the market. One such attempt is described in our US. Pat. No.3,115,998 issued Dec. 31, 1963. While this cabinet solved the problemsof being able to use different towel packs, the cabinet design wasrather complicated which greatly increased production costs. The resultwas that this cabinet was not competitive in cost with the usual simplecabinets for handling a single type of towel pack.

It is therefore, the object of the present invention to provide asimplified cabinet design which will embody the versatility of thecabinet described in the above patent and the simplicity and lowproduction costs of the usual single purpose cabinets.

The paper towel dispensing cabinet of this invention comprises a simplecabinet having a rear wall, a pair of side walls, a bottom member and afront wall. The bottom member includes a substantially horizontalportion merging into an upwardly inclined portion towards the front ofthe casing. This inclined portion terminates in a substantially verticalrolled paper guide which is spaced rearwardly a small distance from thefront wall. A folded towel dispensing slot is provided in the inclinedportion of the bottom and this slot is narrow adjacent the ends thereofwhile being enlarged rearwardly in the central region to form a spacefor grasping C-fold towels. t

An adaptor plate is hingedly mounted on the rear wall and is arranged toassume either an up position flat against the rear wall to accommodate atowel roll or a wide width single-fold towel pack or a down position inwhich the plate is inclined downwardly with the lower edge thereofresting on the bottom adjacent the rearward edge of dispensing slot toguide narrow width multi-fold and C-fold towel packs into engagementwith the dispensing slot.

According to a preferred feature of the invention, the bottom memberincludes a depression with converging side walls extending transverselybetween the side walls of the cabinet. The converging side wall of thedepression towards the front of the cabinet is the main inclined portionof the bottom containing the dispensing slot. This depression serves asa nesting position for the rolled towels and the rearmost convergingwall serves as an abutment for the adaptor plate when in its downposition.

The dispensing slot is conveniently formed by constructing the bottom intwo parts with the slot representing a gap between the two parts. Theenlargement of the slot is in the form of a curved stepwise cutout whichextends into the horizontal portion of the above mentioned depression.Thus, when the adaptor plate is in its down position, its lower edge isadjacent the rearmost extent of the slot enlargement.

The front walls of the cabinet can be conveniently in the form of a doorand this is preferably hingedly mounted at its lower corners. The doorcan conveniently be shaped to form both a front and a top for thecabinet and the bottom edge of the door provides a tear edge for therolled towels.

From the above description it will be seen that the cabinet of thisinvention is very simple in design and inexpensive to construct and yetembodies all of the features of the more complicated cabinet describedin the prior patent. Moreover, it is more easily converted for use withthe different types of towels since the conversion is simply a matter ofswinging the hingedly mounted adaptor plate into an up or down position.

Certain preferred embodiments of the invention will now be illustratedwith reference to the attached drawings wherein: 9

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a complete cabinet;

FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing the adaptor plate in the up positionwith the cabinet dispensing a towel roll;

FIG. 3 is a sectional view similar to FIG. 2 but showing the adaptorplate in its down position for accommodating a narrow width towel pack;

FIG. 4 is a bottom view of the cabinet; and

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the cabinet with the door removed.

Referring to the drawings, the paper towel dispensing cabinet can asshown have a pair of side walls 11, a rear wall 12, a bottom member 13and a door member 14. Each side wall has an upwardly inclined bottomedge 15, a vertical front edge portion 16, an inclined front edgeportion 17 and a horizontal upper edge 18. A narrow bent flange 19extends inwardly along the edges 18 of side walls 11 and along the topedge of rear wall 12. A slot 20 can also be provided in the side walls11 for determining the amount of towelling still in the cabinet. Thedoor 14 also has bent side flanges 21 and is hingedly mounted to sidewalls 11 by pins 22. The door member has a vertical panel 23 whichmerges into an inclined panel 24 which in turn merges into a tophorizontal panel 25. A locking mechanism 26 is provided in top panel 25and this engages a projection 27 which extends downwardly from flange19. A cutout 28 is provided in vertical door panel 23 to assist ingrasping rolled towelling. The lower edge 29 of panel 23 serves as atearing edge for rolled paper towelling.

Towards the front of the cabinet is positioned a guide member 30 forrolled paper towels. This guide member is made of sheet material whichis folded over on itself so as to form an outer panel 31 and an innerpanel 32 joined by an upwardly facing bend edge 40. The inner panel 32merges into an inclined bottom panel 33 which terminates in a beadededge 34. This beaded edge 34 forms one edge of the towel dispensing slot35.

Commencing at the rear wall 12 of the cabinet the bottom 13 includes ahorizontal panel 36 which merges into a downwardly inclined panel 37which in turn merges into a horizontal panel 38 and this in turn mergesinto an outwardly and upwardly inclined panel 39. The outer edge ofpanel 30 forms the second edge of towel dispensing slot 35.

The slot 35 includes stepwise cutout portions 35a and 3512. Thus, arelatively long cutout portion extends into inclined panel 39 and asecond cutout portion 35d extends into horizontal panel 38. These cutoutportions 35a and 35b facilitate grasping the folded towels and inparticular make it possible to grasp the C-fold towels.

The adaptor plate is a simple sheet metal plate 41 which is mounted torear wall 12 by a pair of hinge connections 42. The plate 41 is shown insolid lines in FIG. in its up position and is held in that position bymeans of clasp 43. When this clasp 43 is released the plate 41 swingsdown into the position shown in broken lines and comes to rest on theinclined panel 37 with the edge of the plate adjacent the slot cutoutportion 35b.

As will be seen from FIG. 3, with the adaptor plate in the downposition, the narrow width folded towel pack is directed forwardly inthe cabinet so that the towels are in proper alignment with the slot 35.

When the adaptor plate is in the up position as shown in FIG. 2, thepaper towel roll rests in the bottom depression as shown and when a widewidth folded towel pack is used, this will rest directly on bottom panel36 and extend out to slot 35 with the outer edge of the pack resting onthe panel 39.

Thus, it will be seen from the above detailed description that this verysimple cabinet is extremely easily adapted to all of the usual types ofpaper towels including both rolls and folded towels.

What I claim is:

1. In a cabinet for selectively dispensing different types of papertowels such as rolled towels, single, multi-fold and C-fold towels, thecombination of a casing including a rear wall, a pair of side walls, abottom member, and a hinged door which constitutes the front and top ofthe casing when closed, said bottom member extending generally forwardlyand upwardly from said rear wall and terminating at the front thereof ina downturned edge spaced rearwardly from said door so that rolled towelsplaced on the bottom member may be drawn downwardly over said downturnededge, the intermediate portion of said bottom member being provided witha transversely extending dispensing slot for single and folded towels,the rear portion of the bottom member being provided with a rearwardlyinclined step spaced forwardly from said rear wall, an adaptor platehingedly mounted on said rear wall in a plane spaced above said bottommember, said adaptor plate being swingable from a lower downwardly andforwardly slanting position in which its lower edge abuts said step ofthe bottom member to a raised position wherein it extends upwardly fromits hinged mounting and lies flat against said rear wall, and latchmeans on the rear wall for releasably relating the adaptor plate in itsraised position.

1. In a cabinet for selectively dispensing different types of papertowels such as rolled towels, single, multi-fold and C-fold towels, thecombination of a casing including a rear wall, a pair of side walls, abottom member, and a hinged door which constitutes the front and top ofthe casing when closed, said bottom member extending generally forwardlyand upwardly from said rear wall and terminating at the front thereof ina downturned edge spaced rearwardly from said door so that rolled towelsplaced on the bottom member may be drawn downwardly over said downturnededge, the intermediate portion of said bottom member being provided witha transversely extending dispensing slot for single and folded towels,the rear portion of the bottom member being provided with a rearwardlyinclined step spaced forwardly from said rear wall, an adaptor platehingedly mounted on said rear wall in a plane spaced above said bottommember, said adaptor plate being swingable from a lower downwardly andforwardly slanting position in which its lower edge abuts said step ofthe bottom member to a raised position wherein it extends upwardly fromits hinged mounting and lies flat against said rear wall, and latchmeans on the rear wall for releasably relating the adaptor plate in itsraised position.